The Steve Dangle Podcast - Top Eight | July 5, 2021

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

Our thoughts and prayers are with Matiss Kivlenieks' family and friends. Rest in peace, Kivi. On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the Tampa Bay Lightning try to win the Stanley Cup tonight versus the Canadiens (00:00), Minnesota re-signs Joel Eriksson Ek (29:00), the Ontario government might let sports back in (45:00), the Oilers acquiring Duncan Kieth (55:00), hit like and subscribe (57:00), power ranking the top 8 playoff teams (1:02:00). Originally aired: July 5, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/JBVWn8TnSq4 Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://magicspoon.com/sdp https://www.getroman.com/sdp https://ca.manscaped.com/ https://www.creditkarma.ca/ Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake i want that mug what mug you roger sports net mug i don't know what you're talking about i want that mug where do you get a sports net mug i only drink out of tsn mugs i don't know what you guys are talking about i've never seen one of those in my entire life no i have a uh sports net 590 the fan mug yeah actually do you have a sports net i have a fan 590 mug i stole it on my last day of work i uh oh of the people in this room or in this content or conversation that have worked for sports net i have worked for sports net the least i think it was two and a half weeks maybe three and and i am the one with the mug you have the best mug i don't have the

best mug maybe because i was the most beloved who knows of all the things i probably shouldn't have i think this is the shouldn't heaviest i i have a fan 590 mic flash oh did you steal it well like they were just lying around and not being used anymore and like i don't know like i was an intern for them and that's it but whatever it's mine now it's mine i will consider this payment i don't think it should have been but i will consider i will thank you for the free years i am going to take your mic flash no i would happily give this to someone more deserving because the years go by and i'm like nope it's weird that i have this steve nobody deserves a mic flash don't put that shit on people okay it's it's a piece of plastic with some some foam you

probably should throw it out but it's like eight dollars yeah if it means something to you hang on to it but to say that there might be somebody more deserving of a fan 590 mic flash and i say this about any station ever i their pieces of plastic i have one person who deserves it more who roger lazaro oh the only person in the universe who'd probably appreciate that more i think roger's a part owner in the fan anyway so i don't think it really matters he's he's been there so long that he they must have given him stocks in that company must oh my god i would i would hear him on the radio all the time and then like sometimes i'd be like oh and he's on the same go train car as me so it's like leave me alone roger i have homework to do hey so um game four

tonight obviously tampa is up three to nothing and there are plenty of people who are cheering against the lightning but this one is the most surprising the mayor of tampa bay will be cheering against the Lightning tonight. Producer Jesse, can you play? Not Producer Jesse, just Jesse, can you play the audio? Here's what we would like. What we would like is for the Lightning to take it a little bit easy, to give the Canadians just the smallest break,

allow them to win one at home, and then bring it back to the Amelie Arena for the final and the winning of the Stanley Cup. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, But they are playing some amazing, amazing hockey. Now, coming from a Leafs fan's perspective, my suggestion would be to not tempt fate. No matter how far you think you got Montreal down,

just, you know, we've been here before. Take it from us. It's a trap. No, win in Montreal. Win in Montreal? Yes, 100%. Win in Montreal. all never first of all who don't throw stanley cup final games who do you think you are that's

nuts do what you did last year win go back and celebrate easy that's what tampa does it's what tampa does best win trophies elsewhere come back and party i there should be a super cut of american politicians talking about hockey or as hockey uh because honestly you know you've got hardcore hockey fans in the states but none of them are elected officials and i don't know how it's possible that we've never had a hockey fan in office but like you know it goes back to bill clinton saying instead of eiserman stevia zerman and they all say yeah it was clinton um you know there's there seems to be among elected officials ice hockey as they call it it's just hockey to us because they have field hockey down there and that's that might be as big or bigger than the

nhl we don't know um the the whole idea of ice hockey is like well this and this a quaint little sport you know what i mean biden's not even a flyers fan he's told he's a flyers fan right he's heard of the flyers he's seen the logo but like he was there on political business he wasn't watching the game right hello springfield like that's just every politician when it comes to exactly exactly anyway uh it was very sweet and i'm sure she's a huge huge lightning fan obviously um you know what the only thing that i will say is that if the lightning do win tonight the bummer thing will be um that the arena is is not full whether it's full of canadians fans are full of lightning fans it's a bummer that quebec wouldn't go forward with you know having 10 000 people in

there it looked like that was going to happen um and it would be pretty neat at amelie to see obviously, you know, 18,000 people freaking out because it's in such a rare sighting. However, win the cup and have a parade outside, and that's safer, to be honest. You have it outside, what are the chances of you catching it pretty slim? Tonight, I'm rooting for the Canadians

just because of Chris Johnston. Because Chris Johnston couldn't travel back and forth between Tampa and Montreal, so he's still down in Tampa waiting for Game 5 to happen. so i'm rooting for montreal to win tonight so that chris's journey he can stay there and actually get another game down there and it would be worth it you know the quarantine so that's what that's why i'm rooting for montreal okay it's uh oh my god that's that's so ridiculous that is is what it is man is what it's amazing that tampa could win two cups back-to-back cups and not be able

to celebrate in front of fans either time that yeah that's a that's shitty there's no other way to describe it's just shitty but they will get to celebrate in front of their fans it's still going to be a good time i believe it was a pretty big street party last year was it not oh yeah and they'll go 25 mil over the cap next year yeah like just uh they'll hold vasilevsky and sam coast out of the lineup nature is healed you might say yeah it'll be fine they'll acquire price now it'll be great we will have one game to talk about on wednesday we want one single hockey game my question to the two of you right now because i would like your predictions is will it be the last game i know you're cheering for montreal jesse do you believe it will be montreal's last

game or do you think they actually pull it out tonight the problem with montreal is that they had to come in this series and play a tighter game a tighter hockey game and limit turnovers and just try and stop Tampa's offense and they did it successfully and it still didn't work like they they've been playing really well and they can't play well enough to still stop tip like the turnovers are still happening even though they've limited their number of term turnovers compared to the other rounds Tampa's just been able to take every um zone enter every time they're exiting the uh defensive zone just turn it into an offensive chance like they're limiting these chances for tampa and they're still converting them into goals each shot so i don't

think there's a shot that montreal is even comes close to winning four straight here but i think they get tonight because sweeps are really hard to do i think they win tonight um even if it's on accident they they get a couple and they somehow stop tampa and i think uh game five in tampa they win the stanley cup steven a dangle it's definitely a cooler visual to win in in tampa but i i think i think it's over uh i i think tampa wins it um boy watching montreal try to get a goal in the third period that's when i was like okay oh yeah yeah the series is done they they tampa could not or sorry montreal could not they couldn't get out of their own zone yeah people talk about neutral zone defense tampa doesn't let you get out of your own zone and even when

montreal is getting shots they're not particularly dangerous if montreal is able to get the first goal they're good at playing with the lead and yeah and it suited them very well um they get the get an early goal play with the lead defend um but tampa has done that allowed them tampa's done that two out of three games they've gotten the lead early like that yan ruda goal was like oh i mean and what a great shot i had no one including wonderful i've seen that but you know the one thing i did think was um i mean that the uh the canadians got more goals in game three than they had the previous two combined yeah but uh and like that nick suzuki shot underneath um vasilevsky's right pad there that was got two goals in this stanley final neither should have

gone in no but it was a great i i you know what i want to give him a little bit of credit i think he pinpointed that one and i think that he that shows what kind of a weapon he is however that's the weapon that's the one and if he can't score even if he can score how how you know how good is it going to be really and i think i i think on that on that on that note you know i mentioned earlier that like earlier in the series if they don't win game two i don't think they're going to win a game and i could be wrong about that still but they threw everything they had in the first i don't know 60 70 percent of that game in game two right it was they were out shooting 30 to 15 Montreal had everything going forward and it could not happen and if you guys the thing the

thing I would I would look out for too you see some of the Montreal media pointing this out about Carey Price there are people saying that it's very rare to do this in Montreal but they are criticizing some of Carey Price's play because I believe the save percentage is under 900 I think it's 885 it's poor now is that from what you've seen because from what I've seen I still see the the same carrie price is it just that this is a better team it's it's a better team and uh i i the the narrative too many people are ah gotcha told you with uh some people are doing it with the habs but people are doing it specifically with carrie price and it's wrong i i think it's wrong um you know you can look at the playoffs and go it's a hot streak i i look at it as a guy who

was pretty mediocre during the regular season he's turned it on for the playoffs and he's been great and all of a sudden he's turned into a pumpkin well why and and this is this is what i i often do with the leafs and and you know when i was talking about freddie for a while um particularly two years ago actually i'm like okay his numbers are garbage let's look at each individual goal that goes in though because we're able to do that we know what all the goals are there are no mystery goals they were all on tv and 4k and all that and uh carrie price was screened on the first two goals should have maybe had one of them um you know maybe he could fight his way through a screen the ruda shot he never saw no and and really it was pinpoint accuracy i don't

think jan ruda even thought he could shoot like that yeah sorelli sorelli set up a really good screen on the second goal third goal's a two on oh that can't happen and then two minutes later oh nope we got to clean that up you allow a two on one it can't happen for you to like for a lot of fans to make the egregious statement that all carry price is bad now you have to be able to point out specific goals where it's entirely his fault and that hasn't happened in these playoffs Like he hasn't been responsible for just overly bad goal. So he's not, he's not bad.

It's just a good team. And then it's not to say he hasn't allowed bad goals, but they've got five goals in three games and carry prices. The reason you're losing. Yeah. Get out of my face. Well, and beyond that,

beyond that part too, is the, is the whole thing about like, look at what Tampa has done to every other team. The only team they did not do this to where were the Islanders. That was the only team. And there were games where they did it to the Islanders, but the Islanders were able to give it back.

Nobody, even like Canadians fans can talk all they want. Nobody thought the Canadians were going to the Stanley Cup final this year. Nobody. Nobody thought that. So it's been a fun run. But at the same time, you got to understand that when you are a Cinderella story, you're Cinderella for a reason. You shouldn't be there. And you don't have the talent on paper to be there.

You're there. You got there. It's great. but at the same time you got to remember there's going to be a huge differential in talent and i think it's unfair to point the blame at at carrie price maybe his numbers are low but i think that there's just a lack of depth in montreal in comparison to what tampa has and that sometimes the team's just better i think it's just tampa man yeah they're just great now you know going steve on that because i want to keep going i gotta open a window in here i'm gonna fry to death hang on okay i'm having a very difficult time really criticizing anything montreal's doing you know today they're talking about like ducharme's lineup decisions things of that nature oh puppy oh that's

a kitty whose kitty is that teddy that's teddy that's teddy the cat that's my girlfriend's cat teddy oh that's nice yeah he's cute but anyway so anyways yeah uh you know there's there's some lineup decisions. To me, that's all very micro. Can we go over those? Yeah, we should. They're surprising. Oh, yeah. To me, it's

all very micro. If you look at them over the course of the entire playoffs, really pinpoint a weakness. You could argue it's scoring, but they're not the only team, and they've defended so efficiently that they've gotten this far. It's just Tampa is this

goddamn battering ram. right and they don't even need a ton of opportunities um like we saw we saw that in game two i i watched that entire game and yes maybe the numbers made montreal look a little bit more dangerous than they really were but tampa was a battering ram they needed so much less than montreal did um so sometimes like like i go back to what ken reed said like why can't we look at a goal and talk about how cool it was rather than the defensive breakdown or whatever. I mean,

that's a good point. Yeah, it was a good point. I think everybody's trying to get a little hipster with why goals happen to two on O's a bit of a no brainer, but for the most part, I'm looking at what Tampa is doing and it's Tampa doing it. You know what I mean?

They're just extraordinarily good, deep, fast. What's their weakness really? what's their achilles heel well and so jesse you wanted to mention that you know you've got some some line of questions about montreal and i have as well uh but i'd like you to go through what you what you were going to mention here the main one i just look at that surprising is kakini i think because he leads the team right now in uh five on five goals during the playoffs

i think it's surprising that you take your top goal scorer at even strength and you bring him out of the lineup when you're desperate to win a game that is surprising to me from uh jeff ducharme um i listen you want to bring jake evans in uh cool uh there's been some argument today that it should be thomas tatar on account of the camp bloody score i would support that decision too tatar tatar just had bad luck too because as soon as they brought him out of the lineup versus Toronto, they went 11-2 in the playoffs. So how do you squeak them back in? He's been in two Stanley Cup finals over the last four years

and been a healthy scratch both times. Oh, that sucks. It's just a terrible... Those are the moments you dream of. It's a cruel game. It's an extremely cruel game. To me, I think I'd take a look at maybe taking Eric Stahl out, which is counterintuitive for hockey because it's the veteran and everything.

And you want the veteran to play in an elimination game. And who knows if he'll ever have a chance to get this close again. Are you going to win? What have you done for me lately? And by my eye, he's been a relatively weak link in this final. I got to say, too, look at the three games that Montreal played in the finals. Which one did they look the least composed in? Last game.

and and i ask you what the change was you don't think it was that they were at home no no i think i think luke richardson should be the next coach of the montreal canadians he pulled them through the the end of the vegas golden night series he did he did um and the most composed like let's be honest here okay toronto maple leaves are the biggest choke artists in the league and you can quote me on that everybody knows it it's not really it's not a big big statement adam why are you why are you bringing up things that are backed up by decades of evidence yeah the winnipeg jets first they lose shifley but they're not that great of a team montreal figured them out they're a hard-working team they figured habs would have beat them anyway

i think habs would have beat them anyway for sure uh which i i can we got to talk about edmonton but you you steve you said it last episode the uh the oilers fans are running around like they're on fire like they're just they're they're just as bad as lee fans right now so i oilers fans you have to understand i'm so sorry but i'm yeah for the entertainment value i can't wait for the straight and now they're getting done sure um but then you look at the vegas series one that montreal really in on paper had no business being in and i think they looked the best under luke richardson and i i'm not trying to say this to insult dominic ducharme i know i've had an extra grind with him since game one of the playoffs but to be honest with you look at that set of games

that they played with luke richardson and tell me that they played a better stretch of games i can guarantee you they didn't it did not happen montreal's got some very interesting decisions to make because i mean how if you're looking for a head coach how don't you at least go who's luke richardson well yeah that's what i'm saying like look at the playoff performance that they have and and see okay so who did they do consistently because because you got to do an honest assessment of your team at the end of the season okay so uh we ran into we we worked really hard we were an incredible team and they are i will never take that away from this year's canadians wonderful wonderful run you ran up against toronto they choked you won you earned that winnipeg didn't

stand a chance against you because you just you're just a deeper team frankly they're better constructed team they're better Vegas was a shock to everybody it really really was underrated chokers interesting you say that what do you mean back-to-back years in the conference final they haven't been able to score a bloody goal and the year before these back-to-backs they had a huge lead in game seven and blew it I'm sorry if that was the Leafs we'd be calling them chokers they're chokers wow wow okay Steve versus the Vegas Golden Knights let's go next year they might not be chokers but right now well when Jack Eichel centers Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty I'm sure they'll be much better oh yeah you know they're gonna get them that's what they do I mean

that's what you need playoff experience I think you know a lot of and a lot of credit is due to the entire Canadians coaching staff for you know they lost their head coach this year sort of a big deal but I think you look at if you're Mark Bergevin you have to look at when the team looked the best the team looked the best against Vegas there's no question that was this year's of the this of this year's version of the Montreal Canadiens that was their pinnacle unless they can somehow pull out four straight wins here and I'm you know to this point those are the best games they've played no question but we thought Vegas would be a good challenge for Tampa and montreal beat them they look pedestrian man i hated i i from a playoff perspective i hated

watching the vegas golden knights i hated it what was it why they couldn't do anything they couldn't do anything they just kept they they did this little east west style in the neutral zone that got swatted every time i'm watching their big line expecting to be entertained when brayden points on the ice i'm i adjust myself yeah i'm like all right man blake coleman this series that guy is he's been amazing everybody or like even even for the habs like like they got got when caulfield's on the ice you're watching it's it's like the video game meme i i sit forward in my chair i'm ready vegas i stopped doing it by like game four right when i when i saw mark stone and max petra all right here's a shift off let me let me look down to my phone i'll ask some questions

i'll answer some questions they were horrible they were horrible i the the vegas golden knights more than any other team in these playoffs i go how would i talk about these guys if they were the leafs they stunk not good not good well and that's that's because of the haps but and but again it goes back to jesse's point which is there are some questionable lineup decisions that i don't think jesse were being made when luke richardson was running the team well how How much credit are we giving to NHL head coaches for on-ice performance? That is a good question, and I think it's open. But I think – I look at what Barry Trotz did with the Islanders,

and I can tell you what a good coach can do. How much effect does a bad coach have on world-class hockey players? That's a good question. I don't know. You know what? I would be curious to see if you could get truth serum and run it through the last 20 years of every Stanley Cup champion player, how many of them not hated their coach because a lot of players hate their coach. A lot of us hate our bosses

and you're successful anyway. Hated or thought, sorry, not hated, thought their coach was inept. Thought their coach wasn't a good coach, but won anyway. All right. If you put Steve behind the bench

instead of John Cooper tonight and with all the assistance and everything and you gave Steve like a manual and the what to do during what scenario. Here's a key pass. you use it at the south building right here's where you get your lunch it's complimentary all right mr glenn here pose for your picture could steve win a hockey could steve win one of these next four hockey games yes

yeah right they wouldn't be right but they're good enough where they can manage on their own so it's interesting so what's the uh i don't know what the upgrade is or downgrade if luke Richardson's in there or uh Mr. Ducharme is I don't know I'm I think it comes down to just talent in the lineup how do you pull cock and yammy out I mean it's just like it's it's daft it really is and you can't tell me Eric Gustafson has played well enough to continue to play no he's been bad he's been so bad come on I don't think we're having this conversation if cock and yammy plays um but but he did this before steve no i know i know i i i don't understand why he's taking him out and i don't understand why this all or nothing scenario is all right now

we'll put romanoff in like does this guy have an injury we don't know about like what's he playing now is he gonna play he's playing tonight yeah uh who is it is kulak and romanoff are in merrill and gustavson are out and evans evans is in yeah cock and yammy's out cock and yammy's not gonna play a game he's not gonna play so they're so they could lose they could lose the stanley cup tonight and cockney emmy didn't even put on a jersey and like one of the only habs i really consistently notice offensively is sitting and that's the thing that they need the most and hockey's listen hockey's ridiculous so they could win they could win 5-1 tonight and jake evans scores them all yeah yeah first five goal game and i don't know cup final history

maybe I don't know but I I would I would absolutely believe it one thing to be watching out for tonight too and I've I've kind of said this yesterday or sorry last show which feels like yesterday because I'm on vacation um Tampa with I call it hunting but it's basically taking care of opportunities when they present themselves right we talk about the giveaways and that sort of thing and I think the big stat again is giveaways because the Canadians had 23 in game three lightning had 13 and the first star of the game can anyone tell me the first star of the game is from game three yeah who was the first star should have been probably tyler johnson jesse who do you think uh kucherov so it was tyler johnson how many minutes did tyler johnson play

14 jesse how many minutes 12 9 what that's all how many times was tyler johnson on waivers this year guys uh at least once i think it was as many as three times final answer two pretty sure he was on waiver waivers three times wow wow now he had a bad regular season nobody's here to to erase that uh but what we're seeing here is probably the last of the heroic tyler johnson moments in tampa because they've already had the conversation with him about trading him they had it last year and here's what happens somebody's going to help the lightning we said this about chicago stop helping chicago we said this about who else did we say this about there was other good teams it was like mostly chicago stop helping chicago stop helping tampa somebody's going to come and help

tampa because they've seen tyler johnson perform and thought you know he would look really good with us and i have to give him credit he has probably maximized his trade value especially the stanley cup final with everybody watching but tyler johnson is a to me it's like a joel joel ward part two like he's a he's a real good pressure performer and i just feel like somebody is going to come along and not only are they going to help tampa they're going to give tampa assets for tyler johnson joel ward for a number of years was was a fascinating player you look at his regular season numbers and then faced uh playoffs come and he's like i am god now scarborough let's go um uh so i wonder if there's a victor arvidson like trade where okay we're gonna lose

someone real good here we might as well recoup a couple assets let's make a trade with a team that doesn't have all the cards on us um i don't i really don't see tampa getting much what they get out of it is the cap space if a team was smart they would make tampa pay um but i mean teams wants centers right and he can play center yep i don't know tampa's confusing because i feel like they have a few guys who flip-flop um boy that's a lot of money it's a lot of money man five million bucks it's a lot of money to nine teams he's got the no trade clause but you know he's going to be gone this year i was going to say he's he's the kind of guy you could trade for if you're disappointed with what you got in free agency problem is free agency doesn't come until

after the expansion draft so tampa i think is going to try to move this guy before the expansion draft i just don't know if they're going to be able to get it done i think they'll get it done if they're if they do get it done prediction if they do get it done they're going to have to pay you think so yeah they're not going to be recouping assets okay all right all right now if they do breeze blah is a freaking unbelievable hey uh berkshire pointed this out on Twitter, if Tampa were to win the Cup, because it hasn't happened yet, Julian Breezebaugh as Tampa Bay Lightning

will have beaten all three GM of the Year candidates en route to the Cup. Dubas was a GM of the Year candidate? Who? Sorry? Oh, no, Dubas wasn't a GM of the Year candidate. No, it was Bergevin and then

Lamorello and now, or no, so Bergevin, Lamorello, and Bill Zito in the first round. Wow. yeah well as jeff merrick likes to point out what is the gm of the year award the stanley gun that's right okay now um we do have to switch gears here to a very very sad story that broke last night and we won't spend too much time on it because obviously you know this is a young man and families in mourning but uh steve can you pronounce his name properly um uh matisse uh

Give Lennox is the best I can do. Now, we know that he was partying in Michigan last night and there was basically a fireworks fight and one hit him in the chest. And unfortunately, he was unable to be revived, succumbed to his injuries. There was obviously a ton of support from the Blue Jackets community,

former teammates and teammates currently posting about him. Apparently, just a fantastic guy. you know the latvian hockey uh uh federation put out a statement today as well and you know as interesting as this guy it it seemed like he was ready for his big break i think columbus was probably looking at trading one of their two goalies that were you know one of their you know their platoon goalies last year and this guy was going to be the guy i think that was going to step into that role he shut out canada a couple months ago at the world championships yeah all the talent all the potential in the world and um an absolute shame so we just wanted to take a moment and send

our um i hate to say thoughts and prayers because certain people have ruined that but send our best to his family uh and anybody that knew him and anybody that saw him play uh i'm you know it seems like he he had a lot of fans and around the game nobody has anything but glowing things to say about him so it's really great on that one you can tell they're they're pretty shattered about this in columbus but also like the latvian hockey community is really really passionate and really tight-knit so this is a sad sad day for them it is it is um we're gonna move on and again a hard right turn but we have to make it uh joel erickson ek was re-signed in minnesota like seconds after we finished recording last episode so i figured we'd kind of go through this a little bit uh just

because like we did with ryan nugent hopkins and there were some oilers fans who did not appreciate the fact that we suggested that maybe ryan nugent hopkins wouldn't be the same player at 38 as he is right now uh i got a few dms from people being upset about it however uh it's usually what happens with players yeah yeah just about that well there was some name calling in there but uh joel erickson x an interesting guy because you know i with respect to the minnesota wild outside of minnesota they're not usually a top story you don't usually hear about the minnesota wild and until like kareel kaprizov came in and then you're starting to see kind of highlight real things but they were they're a team that consistently makes the playoffs sometimes they even make it to round

two but they don't ever seem to be able to get over the hump they've had the same core for a long long time and it seems like with eric sinek and then obviously caprizov and fiala um they've got a new core and there's a new look a new more exciting look to the minnesota wild so i guess starting at you know eight years 42 million dollars and the most interesting thing about the press release is that it actually stated how much money he's making so 5.25 million dollars for eight years what was your initial reaction to the deal guys and and are you a fan of it i mean well first of all if there's any team that should be uh bloody putting all the contract details out it's the minnesota wild you owe us you owe the hockey world gosh darn it um if i'm not mistaken

he finished uh yes just reading on twitter he finished fourth in selkie voting this year so really good defensive center um just the 30 points in 56 games not mind-blowing but he had a lot of goals uh 19 in 56 and at 24 years old he's the kind of guy you lock up to eight years all right not a guy pushing 30 a guy who's uh pushing 25 that's that i think is an enormous difference 32 right when he's done yeah and the only the only way by the looks of his career trajectory the only way this wouldn't work out is an unforeseen injury which wouldn't be a problem for the wild anyway right you know what i mean ltir stuff cap space i mean um obviously they'll be missing out on his talent but no it looks like a really good deal and especially you know let's

say let's say five years from now how much is a like a second line center potentially even first line center by then worth a lot more than five and a bit mil this is a good deal i like it yeah and it's a guy who's 24 and are and had his career high this year in goals and uh and i think points as well like 19 goals in 56 games and bill garen like he only had really three big things on his list for the offseason and that was this contract and then fiala and um caprizoff so like he is he's already got one down the other two uh i assume will get done very shortly and then just worrying about the expansion draft like it's not a hard off season for minnesota especially with two first round picks you got pittsburgh's and your own oh that's right from that zucker deal right yeah

yeah so bill garen's gonna have a like he's gonna by default i think have a good off season just because it's so simple from the minnesota perspective and then they come back next year as a team that made the playoffs and hopefully they sneak in again uh next season to be fair to his predecessor, Paul Fenton, who just died over Kevin Fiala. Paul Fenton was David Poyle's assistant in Nashville. And when he was the GM for that tumultuous

13 months, he was the guy that made the big trade for Fiala because he was a huge fan. And everybody at the time was like, well, I don't know if it hasn't really worked out. And look at that. It actually has. So at least one of the things he did was right. Maybe the way he managed it was not, but I think there's a...

Now, I got a question for you in terms of signing contracts because we ran into this problem with the Leafs and admittedly it's a different situation but when you've got a guy like Kaprizov and you've got Fiala sitting on the sidelines to me you've got to tackle the guy that's most likely to get offer sheeted

right and if you're now I know NHL GMs won't do this because they just don't really have the creativity or the balls to do it but if a guy like Kaprizov Kaprizov is ineligible for an offer sheet oh he is yeah he can't be offer sheeted

He's a 10.2 contract, meaning he hasn't incurred the necessary amount of professional seasons required for Group 2 RFA status, which is when you can be offer sheeted. Very fortunate. I was just going to say, holy smokes. If he's a guy that's an RFA, I'm all over that. He's good. The key thing to look for in the expansion draft is they have three defenders with no movement clauses, which means you have to protect all of them. um but the best one who does not have a no move clause is matt dumba and they've been trying to move on from him for a bit yeah so i wonder if this is the off season they finally do it and

then it's easier to maybe go seven and three or so could you not like i would look at trying trading ryan suiter to seattle like oh i feel like at 36 first round picks then at 36 like that's the contract you want off your books at seven plus million and this is everyone gonna yell at jesse he's got a no move who cares no move doesn't actually mean anything it just makes it harder and it's ryan suiter so it's gonna be hard anyway he's he's got a 7.538461 uh million dollar cap hit for the next four till he's 40 oh baby that is yucky poo poo but this season he makes six and then the following season two one and one so there could you've been talking to leo too much yeah you know what you know a team that would make a lot of sense is the edmonton

oilers because they need a guy to play with uh keith you're on keith imagine you have literally back-to-back norris trophy winners on your blue line how sweet is that right bro that's uh you going to have the slowest blue re-sign adam larson and chris russell let's do it come on literally have four statues playing defense for you next year and darnell nurse you're picking up the slack you're meeting me what no it's not mean it's not mean it's true are you telling me ken holland wouldn't at least call about ryan suiter ken holland would call about ryan suiter i would you okay do you actually believe seriously do you believe that ken holland wouldn't call about ryan suiter if he was available no absolutely no he would you think that

ken holland would call oh yeah of course he would call of course he would call if he's calling about keith he's calling about suitor i think most gms would call just really but but suitor's not that it's yaki poopoo on his performance his offensive numbers are good enough i don't know what his possessions are i assume they're dropping um as you know because time is undefeated yeah unless you're tom brady but um yeah that's uh i'm sure they would love to move on from that deal i don't know that they're gonna be able to all right no but like you said they have a couple first round picks hey there seattle i i again every seattle is this like just card that we pull out and we're just like here here it is here's the the fix all card seattle that's it's okay we're gonna get out

from under this guy seattle how do we fix this problem i don't know how about seattle and just everything is seattle this this uh this is a much better a much better expansion draft conversation though than we were having a few years ago when everything came back to they can't lose brandon leipzig it's one of my less good look it up you must look that up where steve is legitimately upset about the leafs losing brandon leipzig yeah here and here's how you find it go look at any episode within like a three or four month period it's gonna be leipzig what are they going to do like i'm upset that they lost this guy you can play anywhere in your lineup you can play power play yeah yeah he's uh definitely not a jerk yeah he's got maybe 20 maybe

30 more games in the nhl left and uh you know just totally totally a guy you can't miss out on yeah well you know and definitely all wrong sometimes yeah that's all good um no so i you know i think obviously okay with caprizov's contract status not being rfa then i guess you to tackle fiala first but they're gonna lose a good guy i think to the draft here i i think they are too but my my question it just quickly on caprizov is how do you begin so erickson x worth 5.25 you've seen years and years and years of him how do you begin in a somewhat still depressed environment in terms of finances to model a contract what's a comparable for caril caprizov small sample size spectacular results how long do you go how much money how high do you go

the easiest comparable uh so i came over as a much older rookie from russia and won the calder panarin artemi panarin um is the easy one but that was five years ago it was six years ago what percentage of the cap was it at the time let's see that's a very good question um he got it looks like two years six mil and that was 2014 so that would have taken him in 2016 because he won he was signed december 2016 okay almost 2017 and he won the calder over mcdavid yes he did in 2015 so he'd signed this in 2016 the extension at six million which was what at the time percentage wise higher than it is now what was the cap in 2016 oh it actually wow cap friendly rules is so it's it actually has that i didn't know oh 8 8.22 percent of that rules man

like it's got everything i did pretty great adam i froze because i'm like there's no way that information oh it's literally right there in front of my face 8.22 so what what would that be this year what would that be don't worry i'm on it 79 point something is 81.1.5 million times this is fun uh 6.7 see you you think that's about right a couple years 6.7 million less a little less 6.34 but he's got he he could say listen you you might say my my nhl sample size is small but i also played in russia and was this good in russia too right panarin could have said the exact same thing it's a it's a tough conversation because you're like well he signed for that several years ago and then you go very much like my seattle card you go pandemic right it's a it's

a large card it's like the size of an ipad it doesn't belong in the deck at all by the way it's a very it's a legitimate card what's the story with caprizov and why did he go in the fifth round was it that nobody thought he would come uh it could be that like it could be um like kuznetsov was a first round pick for the caps um do they take him in the first round if they knew how long it would take him to come over i don't know right interesting that's that's a pretty tough one kaprizov uh that's a very good question i don't know okay okay because that's not as a good comparable that's that's another one yeah that's the guy who came over and blew it up in what like 20 at age 22 in terms of development he's the guy who reminds me of him the most just this guy

who for years oh wait till you get a load of this guy and by the time he came over i was like i'm not guys i'm bored like is he coming or not the only reason i was i was jacked for him to come over is because i covered him in the khl like the year before he came over and i got to actually watch him and i'm like oh okay this guy is actually like a leg up like above everybody else but until he actually comes to the nhl i'm sick of the conversation fifth round this guy not bad not bad two and five canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar-raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto

for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine

with the Coffee Plus range. infused with functional benefits choose the coffee you love with added b vitamins like coffee plus b12 to help support immune function and coffee plus b6 to keep your day moving or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight our new double espresso with ginseng extract whatever lies ahead don't change your morning let your morning change you discover coffee plus on espresso.com um so the uh um i wanted to bring this up just specifically for canadian fans uh the blue jays and tfc are kind of watching and waiting for the federal government to talk about coming back and playing at home so tfc has actually officially submitted a plan to the

federal government and this is important for leaf especially excuse me specifically for leaf fans because it's the same body that owns the Leafs. And if they are submitting for government approval, you can imagine that they're going to try to take this and use this and apply it to when the Leafs are back in October. That's the expectation, I would think. So the Blue Jays are watching whatever happens with TFC, but TFC has had no home games in two years,

and they're one eight and two and they just fired their head coach so things aren't doing well and they want to bring they did they fired they hired their head coach six months ago he's gone um he lost seven one in soccer yeah pretty bad team pretty pretty bad um so basically we don't specifically know how many people would be allowed in like percentage wise but you have to think with outdoor covid transmission being as low as it is which we know scientifically it is um and we know that obviously you know the jays are a little bit different because when you walk the concourse at skydome it's closed in it is closed in so you have to be a little more careful even if you have the roof open with tfc it's your outdoors and the concourse is outdoors and the only thing that's

not outdoors is the bathrooms and you can wear a mask in there hey which is sometimes sometimes honestly i if the mask rule stays for going to the bathroom i'm cool with it because uh there are some gross bathrooms but uh not saying tfc is gross fighting for that yeah i want to breathe it all in ah that's what i'm fighting for the freedom to ah just go with go with the mask bro chill yeah yeah so the uh anyway long story short we're gonna wait and see you gotta think though the Leafs if everybody's got their Canada's on track to have basically everybody have a double dose available by the end of August you have to think that the next eight weeks we're going to know how many tickets you're going to be able to buy to it the Leafs game not um not if but how

many and that's pretty exciting and I wonder for a Leaf game now whether anybody wants to buy a or not it'll be very interesting because of how angry the fan base is uh but i wonder honestly do you see 10 000 people in there in october how many season tickets do the leafs have uh booked because i wonder maybe no because it's not it's not every seat in the house you know so i wonder if uh like all of the tickets would be mostly accounted for based on the limits of the stadium season ticket how many season tickets are there like is it 50 of the building is already accounted for in season tickets i don't think it's that much if you can't fill half the building by then i'd love to know why you know what i mean like i'm i'm happy to listen if if we're keeping people

safe cool i get it but like adam said for reasons x y and z they ought to be so why like why why are 25 000 people allowed to basically make out outside of the bell center but only 3 500 people because that's outdoors oh i know they're outdoors but they're this far away but there's no distancing it's you should probably let a little bit more people inside too like the ontario government's like yeah you can have x amount of people in your backyard they didn't say you could all make out and all those people are basically making out and the numbers didn't spike or anything it's great that's the other thing this is one so here's the thing as the vaccination rates go up at a certain point we do have to look at what it looks like to open up and

whether or not you're personally comfortable with it is immaterial we have to look at what it looks like when this opens up and i wonder how much of the the federal government response to maple leaf sports and entertainment plays into how they get the leafs and the rafters back in those buildings because it's been it's been the Leafs did okay but for the but the Leafs were at home for the Raptors it's been a total disaster the Raptors were a better better better team than what we saw in the bubble and what we saw last year playing out of Tampa seeing how bad the Raptors had it kind of makes what the Jays are doing miraculous yeah yep I know they haven't exactly been the best but like the fact that they're getting like the kind of performances they are

out of like vladi for example it's pretty cool yeah pretty unreal it's completely derailing the conversation but uh no it's true i'm i'm dying for this all the dude uh most of my in-laws are in another country across the ocean like uh just just give me give me a dates give me a let us let us plan let us plan our lives for yeah well and they finally released last week in canada i know the states has had this for a while but what when you're fully vaxxed what can you do they hadn't talked about it they refused to even because nobody politically wants to come out and say anything which is a real problem because people are getting double vaxxed and then going so i can't do anything like i know you're worried about who's gonna vote for you and shit but like

what can i do what can i do exactly like what about the voter fucking tell me nobody cares about you unless it's time to vote now um i am looking at this article jesse going back to your question about how many actual seats are available this is for a playoff game so i'm not sure how fair this is but between season ticket holders scalpers and corporations for the first playoff game in 2018 which would have been april 12th or april 13th only 96 seats were available for the general public 96 yes of 18,201 and 600 there were 672 on the pre-sale but you have to be signed up for that so for general public non-presale there were 96 if you were to count the presale and the general public uh ticket purchases together it's still less than uh 900

out of 18 000 i think they they probably hold back like i don't know i'm just ballparking a thousand tickets a game based on that number like maybe they can take some of those corporate seats and they're like okay the corporate seats don't apply here it all applies only to season ticket holders above blah and they have like maybe 500 maybe not even a thousand like a 500 each game if the capacity limit is 40 let's say of 19 what is it 19 000 in scotia bank so it's 40 of that i think maybe 35 is season tickets like it'll just go to you and then like five percent is just general public so think about this imagine there are 12 000 season seat holders okay just for fun At 18,000.

And the Ontario government says you're allowed to have 6,000 people in there. So you're a seasoned seed holder. Lottery. You can only go to one of every two games. And you've paid full price. Because you know, you get your money back. Yeah, sure. I don't know.

No, because like this season, you wouldn't have had to pay for your season tickets. You have to pay to retain the license, though, if you are one of the license holders. Because there's the seasoned seed holders and then there's the license holders. Yeah, but for the actual tickets, you're paying half the price. I don't know. There's no game. I'd be curious. I'd be curious about that.

I really would. You also got to remember the life of a seasoned seed holder is different from ours. It is. It is very different. They build their life around the team. They do. And I don't know about the Leafs necessarily.

I don't know a ton of Leafs seasoned seed holders, but my father-in-law, for example, with TFC, and he was an early TFC seasoned seed holder, and the team was rubbish. and they had not like it wasn't any of the championship years it was before the championship years and they tried to jack the price and he basically emailed them explaining no and they said all right very good sir and he was fine he just he just had the same seat same price how dare you charge me more you guys are shit i'm not paying more and they went you're right you're

not that's good business i like that so so he should have done the negotiating for you with mazda hey and hey at least oh yeah he first of all yes he should have not a dollar more no um but uh i'd be very interested to see uh because it's mlse which is tfc actually but it's the leafs so that's different but i'd be very curious if they tried to jack the price and season seat holders were like didn't you just choke again i wonder how those conversations go i imagine differently than tfc but i'd be curious it's hard to watch like if next season the building's at like 30 capacity and then we went through an entire playoffs where all the american teams had like 100 capacity like that i don't think that's gonna happen i don't think that's

going to happen uh i i think based on our vaccine rates which are better now than the american vaccine rates like per capita way better i think 40 of torontonians have double vacs uh and at least 80 have at least one um the americans haven't even hit 70 countrywide and everybody can get one if everybody walked into the drugstore today they could all get one and they can't they can't get people especially in the southern states cannot get people in to do it they will not take it so um it's it it's a very interesting time for that um and i won't get into that debate because it isn't a debate there is one side and that is it um the the interesting thing is that i know that the government here is going to be very very slow about this however at a certain point you got to

recognize provincially there is an election next year and i wonder how much that plays into like if you're the you know say the federal government opens the borders which they probably will in the next 30 to 60 days then you've got um then you've got then it's down to the province and the province says you can or you can't and if potentially a federal one this summer i don't think this summer no no probably be next but it there will be and you know that as soon as covid's on the wane which it sort of is although not in every country i recognize that um they're going to try to win an election so how do you do that you start let people do the get back to their normal life and i think people would vote for that and everyone's mad everyone's mad let them get distracted that's

probably what you want to do so i'm curious to see how much the pending election which i believe is mandated for next june has to do with this going forward it'll be very very curious to watch and i i get adam you can't talk about the provincial election it's illegal now why is that what no it's illegal doug doug made it illegal no did he yeah you can't talk about the election um i i also want to mention this there's a we were talking about uh oilers fans being just terrified of this duncan keith deal whenever it seems like it's inevitable now oh it's my favorite tv show it's great so archaeology guy um who is one of our favorite oiler followers just just tweeted this said listening to bob stoffer galaxy brain himself into thinking keith would be

a great addition uh worth caleb jones and a prospect uh that's what no and he said he now again i haven't heard the bob stoffer interview but i do think this is kind of funny he said he has himself convinced that keith is still a top four defenseman and will remain a top four defenseman for his age 38 and 39 seasons the evidence for this appears to be that chris chelios played for a long time on an all-star team oh dear oh no to be clear and and archaeologist tweets this and we said this in the last episode the hawks should have to pay not just the oilers but the third team in on this deal because there should be a third team in on this deal if you're the oilers to take the salary off their books yeah they should have to it should be a double

retention and then then then keith makes sense for the oilers beyond that there's no way i i explained last show and i think i was kinder than most there are situations where acquiring duncan keith could benefit your team but to give up a roster player and a prospect and have no retention no it simply doesn't make sense a lot needs to happen for acquiring duncan keith to make sense for your team right um and it's and the oilers i guess like let's oh man i don't think i think that guy i think you start him in a bottom six role and he can play maybe second pair in a pinch yeah he's like what patrick marlo was for the leagues playing third line center when he had to a contributor when he started with the team like a good contributor that guy had 27 goals

He did. Six of them were empty netters. Still had 21 goals on goalies. Who cares? And I think lastly, Jesse, we have this audio that I wanted to play for you that's been making the rounds on the internet. And the thing is that it's,

I wouldn't say that COVID is on the wane worldwide, but I would say that we have a pretty good weapon against it, and that is the vaccine. And people are excited to get back to their daily lives. And I would like you to listen, Steve, to this man who is extremely excited i have no idea what the context is here but extremely excited about the upcoming flow rider concert he's about to attend oh my god my name's john i'm from bride my name's john i'm from bridesburg i i've been waiting for a flow rider concert

this entire pandemic i knew the pandemic would be over when flow rider took the stage i'm ready are you guys ready hit like and subscribe Flo Rida's coming my name's John hit like and subscribe I like this guy fired up for Flo Rida

does he listen to your YouTube channel does he watch tell all your friends Flo Rida here he comes where was this Pittsburgh oh my god I love that I want to be that fired up about anything

it was probably in florida actually having a concert yeah but where's he from he's from pennsylvania he's wearing a phillies jersey in it so amazing did i nail it or what you nailed it you nailed it not a yinzer but but from pennsylvania yeah like 10 of florida's from florida yeah really like you know i knew the pandemic would be over when flow rider took the stage i love that thank you for bringing that to my life i knew the pandemic would be over when chameleon air hit the stage like i can't wait to see the free sean mendez concert at dundas square let's go this is how we rocketed the t-dot in my puma suit anyway um yeah no i i really like that clip thank you no problem i just thought we'd end that on a light note jesse do you have anything

else you'd like to add uh it was in philly because nbc 10 i believe is a philly now or yeah NBC 10 is where the clip came from. So, yeah, it was in Philly. Philly, Pittsburgh, same thing. Did I tell you guys that I once went to a Flo Rida and Pitbull concert because they were on tour together? Yes, you did. And it was at the Stampede Corral.

If you're in Calgary, you know what I'm talking about. It's the old, that's where the Flames used to play. Seated how many people? 5,000. And my grandfather's season tickets were right beside the organ player who was located in the middle of the section. so they had a lot in the 80s they had before the saddle them they had a live organ player in the corral set and they would play the he would he would or she i think was she she would play the

organ and she was sitting beside fans that's kind of cool isn't that neat it would never fly today but like that's pretty cool it's pretty cool so my mom remembers going to games with him when she worked at cj in calgary and uh and they they had season seat they were long long time season seat holders and uh they would zip aside the the organist because my grandfather played the organ and he loved it so he was smiling all day yeah flow rider i knew flow rider would be back the pandemic would be over when flow rider played hit like and subscribe oh let's get in the press conference two and five canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar raised matters on september 19th join thousands in toronto for the princess margaret

cancer foundation walk challenge yourself friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research together we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer register today at pmcfwalk.ca new from nespresso blend wellness into your coffee routine with the Coffee Plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like Coffee Plus B12 to help support immune function and Coffee Plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose Ginseng Delight,

our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on Nespresso.com. All right. guys i did a thing oh i'm excited i power ranked all the teams in the playoffs based on who i think should be favorited to win the stanley cup based on everything we saw in the playoffs okay so i and i did the top eight teams so then eight teams didn't make my top eight did you rank them one

through eight yeah i ranked them one through eight i think that's that's the important part of this so i'm gonna give you my my power rankings of the playoff teams based on everything we saw and then you guys tell me if i went wrong in any in any part of my ranking so number one tampa i'll just run through it and then we'll go over in detail number one tampa number two new york islanders number three vegas golden knights number four colorado avalanche Number five, Boston Bruins. Number six, Montreal Canadiens. Number seven, Carolina Hurricanes.

Number eight, Pittsburgh Penguins. Wow. So my top four, I think, is solid. But I'm willing to hear arguments on the order. But I'm not willing to discuss, hey, somebody else should be in this top four, because this top four is solid. No, you're not even willing to discuss it. No, try and discuss it with me.

I'm not going to be entertaining. Adam, this isn't frigging show and tell. This isn't audience participation. The episode's done. Exactly. Stop. Stop the episode right now. I'll run over the top four again. We can get into the details here.

Tampa, New York, Vegas, Colorado. Top four power rankings of the playoffs. Do you guys have any arguments there with the order? Not yet. Not yet. You know what? I actually really like the top four. I mean,

all right. No, I just want Jesse to get through it. The bottom four again, Boston, Montreal, Carolina, Pittsburgh.

And what? Okay. So this is based on what they did in the playoffs. Yeah. Based on what I saw, I watched pretty much every series in this playoffs. I had a lot of time at home. Couldn't go anywhere.

So based on what I saw from these teams, the, the four through eight is Boston, Montreal, Carolina, Pittsburgh. I have an issue list. this list features a team that played

fewer games than the Leafs you know this yes that would be the Pittsburgh Penguins the Pittsburgh Penguins the first round they played the New York Islanders who based on my power rankings were the second best team in these playoffs which they took them to two overtime games

and the one the second overtime game was a double OT game I consider those coin flips if you if you're an overtime in the NHL in the playoffs those are coin flip games and they lost the series 4-2 those two games could have gone either way and then i saw them play them hard on uh i believe one of those losses was a little bit of a blowout loss i know game uh six where it ended was a 5-3 loss where that could have gone either way as well there's a goal by barzell because

that's how it always ends um but i saw pittsburgh play hard and uh if you remember the regular season, they finished fifth in the entire league. New York finished 12th. I saw a really good Pittsburgh team who got bested by the second best team in the playoffs, so I'm going to rank

them as my eighth seed coming out of this. I have an issue with your list. One issue. Where is it? I think you need to put more respect on the Florida Panthers name. No, there's another team we lost in the first round got demolished florida panthers what oh my lord of panthers took two games from the tampa bay

lightning the only other team to do that is the new york islanders the florida panthers took two games the carolina hurricanes who are on your list did not they lost what the carolina hurricanes won around they went around but they weren't playing tampa and when they played tampa they got steamroll so yes and one of those games with overtime i would say that we need to have a little more respect for the Florida Panthers for taking two games from the Tampa Bay Lightning, a feat no other team

as of yet has even come close to accomplishing. Like really come close. Who did it? Except for the Islanders, but the Islanders were already in that. They have to be on the list. I think what ruins your list is your... I don't know why you put the Islanders second.

You might as well put them first. Based off of this list. Pittsburgh should not be on this list. They should not be on the list. No, no, Tampa is the number one power rack team. Like, that's how you change it. And Vegas is very highly ranked. Otherwise, Colorado would be at least lower on this list.

So the 3-4, the Colorado-Vegas, I had it essentially as a tie. And I gave Vegas the leg up because they beat Colorado. And you are correct. That's where I'm just like, hey. Who did they beat in Boston? New York, yeah. But Boston, I thought Boston looked incredible, especially with Taylor Hall on your second line

when they're playing as well as they are. So that's why they got my fifth seed. Interesting. Boy, I don't understand how you rank five teams ahead of the Habs, man. Well, look at their road, though. I did a fun little game. The one versus eight series out of your picks. It's Tampa versus Pittsburgh.

Who do you got? Tampa. Tampa, obviously. So here, I'll keep my little document going. So you have Tampa. I did this as well. Yeah. Go ahead.

Islanders versus Hurricanes. Islanders. Obviously the Islanders. No, Carolina lost to Tampa. The four versus five series. I'm skipping one. Yeah. It's Colorado versus Boston.

I have Colorado. Yeah. I think that's a little. I think by a hair. i don't think they kill them that's why it's it's four verse five tell me my power rankings are we got to four verse five and you're like oh it's barely yeah because that's where they're ranked but the three verse six series and the three verse six series is our first upset because we have vegas versus the habs and i can't ignore reality they won at the beginning of this podcast

what did you say vegas choked i think based on everything we saw they knocked off colorado like that's that was the best team and they won the president's trophy colorado did i think they have more talent than probably anybody in this league besides tampa and vegas knocked them off so i i gotta say if we played this again and we had to re-rank these teams i gotta rank montreal a little in the lower half because i don't believe a lot of what they did is sustainable and if you run it back that they win another series against vegas i did look at like game seven tampa the islanders and i went okay like if if anybody watched that treat of a series that i thought was going to be boring you'd know by game seven you're like okay whoever wins this game is

going to win the stanley cup right vegas there's an argument even colorado there could be an argument there boston oh man i don't know how you have the habs lower than fifth where where Where'd you have the Habs? I think fourth at the lowest. Maybe third. You can't have them. You really, I mean. I don't know.

But they beat Vegas. Does it count for nothing that they beat Vegas, who is third? It counts for a lot. But if you run it back. Who are you putting your money on? If we go back in time. i'm putting money on vegas i can tell you what if we run it back knowing what i know i'm putting money on the habs because vegas was terrible yeah that's the no but if you run it back and

everything's flat again like and you you go back in time your money's on vegas it's weird you're using you're using july's results but like may's logic like it's really how much that's what's confusing me man what played there's a reason they always play the games because the yes the games aren't won on paper it's true but when you're when i'm when you're evaluating teams you have to do it with what happened on the ice and with the talent in front of you and what you know and if i'm doing that i like how much do we believe even the montreal canadians are going to come out of the atlantic division as play i was a playoff team next year no nobody believed that not even the canadians well no next year next year no next year no we're not sure the much

listen let's let's be let's be real here the 18th place montreal canadians are a question mark to make the playoffs next year and if you don't like that then look at the results of the regular season they're the most fascinating team in the national high without question without question i'm not saying they don't deserve what they have but 18th place they would not have made the playoffs if this was a normal year how do i give them a higher seed than the president's trophy winners i don't that'd be absurd so i think you got to at least have them above boston boston's really good then put the islanders one what no tampa's one that's no well then boston drops below montreal in my opinion okay and panthers over pittsburgh by the way panthers

over pittsburgh i think that's that's an eight nine you know that's uh i i'd be willing to hear that okay thank you yeah oh i thought this list was perfect no i said the top four i got a master The top four were a lock. The top four were a lock. I'm willing to hear arguments on Pittsburgh. I don't buy it because what I saw out of Florida in the playoffs was not great. Excuse me. It was a goaltending.

Yeah, it was a goaltending, and they didn't win a round. So I don't know. We have two teams here who didn't win a round. So I take the more impressive team out of the two, which I thought was Pittsburgh because I loved what I saw towards the end of the regular season when they brought in Brian Burke and they fired their head coach and they went on a lower run. They finished fifth, two points behind Florida, to be honest.

But I think with that lineup versus the Islanders, they looked great, two overtime losses, coin tosses. But Florida, I'm willing to hear an argument that they can knock off Pittsburgh in the seven-game series. You know, I think we have the reason why Pittsburgh made the list, and that is because producer Jesse, or sorry, just Jesse, i gotta stop calling you that jesse has kept in touch with brian burke since the interview that he conducted on this show about six months ago they've been drinking high balls together over

zoom because that's what brian was drinking when he was on this show we think and uh and um and brian said hey jesse if you ever do a power rankings list you make sure i'm on it and make sure my so i don't even care for me so i think the consensus we've come to is a top nine if we include pittsburgh we have a top nine of teams what do you the leafs took uh stan like a finalist to seven what do you guys think of the teams that didn't make it oh i think i think it starts with the leafs um as it always does uh forgive them no it's an unforgivable thing and basically if we've taken a shot at your team believe me we've taken 10 10 shots at ours um i think i think the leafs look the worst of all the teams that didn't make the list and i don't think objectively from

hockey's perspective i don't think that you can look at that any other way from jesse's list if we're just ranking it on bs for the playoffs which i think we are um we're looking at a the most disappointing team is far and away the toronto maple leafs were there look at the teams that didn't make this list okay if we're talking about the top nine okay so we got nashville we You got Washington, St. Louis, Minnesota, Edmonton, Winnipeg, right? Of those teams, I mean, not that the Capitals are bad, but the expectations of the Capitals weren't exactly high this year. St. Louis had an up-and-down year.

The Wild came on strong at the end, and you can see where they're going, but they're a house-money play. The Oilers are disappointing because Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisaitl were absolute mutants this year. But beyond that, it's a very ho-hum team. and it is oh i think they're less than that and and you know i was getting again somebody was debating me again about the taylor hall heartstroke like oh taylor hall got his team to the got his team to the playoffs where would they be without him i'm like how far in the basement do you think

the oilers would be without mcdavid any season since he's been there they would be so in the they would have 10 more first overall picks can we put a deadline can we put a deadline for taylor Hall 2017 MVP takes? No. I will forever die on that hill. I will forever die on that hill. He did not deserve it. It was Connor McDavid's year. So here, I want to finish this up, though.

We have Tampa versus... I'm just saying, look at the expectations of the teams that did not make the list. Not a single one of them comes even close to the division-winning Toronto Maple Leafs. I hate them. I hate them. They stand out

like a sore thumb. i hate them a lot um so we have go through the tampa versus montreal which is an interesting series uh for obvious reasons and the devon taves bowl the islanders take on the colorado avalanche that's oh that would have been so good that would have been a good series yeah you know what i think the isles i think the isles win i think the isles wins too because this year um i i really thought colorado was too powerful to lose um but i think they got a little bit of a little bit of leaves a little bit of leaves they're not they're not quite i'm not going to say soft but they're not quite built for a deep playoff run they know why but they're not far they're not far i don't feel

bad for the heat that mitch marner has taken from this show specifically because i think it's been fair but you watch Tampa Bay play and I look at a guy like Mitch Marner and go well who do I have he's got options but real big shot options he's got one and I watch I watch Tampa play and they have defensemen shooting from from the blue line all the time and not just little like little wimpy little dinky things we're talking big booming shots we don't know wimpy little dinky things when was the last time the leafs had a good justin hall when was the last time we had a good shot from the point well like i saw victor headman with with that power play goal in uh was that game three that that big bomb and i was just like i told you you're allowed to take a slap shot

from the point why that's become as old school as the wraparound like what when did they stop doing that and the answer is they didn't it's just the team we watch doesn't do it ever remember the the power play was in the absolute shitter late in the regular season and Sheldon Keefe goes uh Jake Muzzin why not and he gets out there and he shoots it and it went in yeah strangely enough well and people become vintage people are saying well Sandin played really well on the first power play unit in the playoffs and Morgan Riley might lose his first power play uh spot next year if Morgan Riley is not your number one power play player you got to trade him I think and he like because that's what he does he's an offensive player the Leafs do not it's not that they don't

need what Morgan Riley brings any team could use it but my question is if if Rasmus Sandin has stepped up that much if Jake Muzzin can shoot the puck from from the from the court and I'm not talking about the Tyson Barry I'm going to fire it at your knees shot which is what he did that was the last guy who actually attempted to i'm talking about an intelligent well-reasoned booming slap shot that can be tipped in the last time the leafs had that is probably brian mckay and i and it's that's 15 years time to get some different weapons in there and listen the it's not that matthews shouldn't be the guy that scores all the goals but objectively he can't you got it and it creates more room for a guy like matthews who already had who regular season he would have 60

goals that this had been a normal year did you see um the tyson berry stat uh no what was the stat so it started to catch on different outlets but the first place i saw was j fresh hockey on twitter fun fact this is his tweet fun fact tyson berry is the first player in the 67 year history of the norris trophy to lead defensemen in scoring and not receive a single vote you didn't get a single vote for the norris the norris used to be okay who has the most points trophy. Yeah. And then before that, it was the Nicholas Lindstrom's trophy. He does one thing, and he does it extraordinarily

well. But a defenseman, he's not quite. He's a rover. He's a specialist. So just to wrap that, Steve, you had Montreal upsetting Vegas in the 6-3 matchup, which I'll take. And then Tampa beats Montreal, and then our

finals are the 1-2 seeds. Tampa versus New York. That's interesting. All right. Tampa wins the cup again. I just think it's funny that Montreal's ranked sixth, even on your thing. And they still do upset because we've watched them beat Vegas. Right.

So even with your ranking, it's still one, two, three, six. Hilarious. They don't get it. I don't know if they make the playoffs next year.

That Atlantic division is the best division in hockey. Hey, go into the season on paper. Do not put it past the Leafs to miss the playoffs. It would be their second playoff missing in three years. I remember last Do you remember last year in July Or it might have been August by then

When we were sitting there on Zoom Watching Kyle Dubas in the draft lottery Because that was a thing Leafs were a lottery team Less than a year ago We might be there again Anyway On that polite note

Good luck to the Canadians Good luck to the Lightning Good luck to the fans Enjoy the night tonight uh whatever way it goes we will be back on we have time we don't have time for your history corner oh i guess yeah we do we have a little time can you squeak it in can you do it i can't i can't do it okay he can't do it let's save it for wednesday then okay because we'll have no here if you want to do it we can do it but i have to i have to take a break here's what we

have to do jesse ask the question so it'll be a tease and i'll give you the answer next show okay okay let me pull it up let me pull it up give me half a second it's a good question